"Pencil-neck geek, grit-eating freak
Scum-sucking pea-head with a lousy physique
He's a one-man, no-gut losing streak
Nothing but a pencil-neck geek
-- Freddie Blassie
From an ad-hoc IRC counseling session:
Speaking of geeks and melioration, when exactly did geek lose its completely negative connotation? I can remember it being complementary (outside of computer circles, that is) as early as 1993, but not as early as 1989.
And now for something completely different, what song was used as background music during the last baseball-related MasterCard commercial this past year? (Last year's theme was visiting a handful of stadiums in an old VW microbus. The final commericial had snippets from throughout the year, with a 70's guitar piece in the background. I think the lyrics contain the phrase "shadows of my mind" or "corners of my mind".) I heard the tail end of it on another commerical last night, had the tune stuck in my head all night long, was unable to find anything on Google, and now can't think of it at all.
From America in so many words which has entries for a number of words of American identity lists geek in 1978 with the following:
"....The stage was thus set for the next American evolution of geek as another kind of person, one whose talents were concealed behind an awkward exterior. The exact date is hard to pin down, but in student slang of the 1970s and later, a geek was someone who partied too little and studied too much. And when these geeks migrated to Silicon Valley and began building computers and writing software programs that made them millionaires, they gained respect.
Money has often been said to be the ultimate aphrodesiac. Before the net really became popular I was a basement troll working with unsexy computers...after the net became popular I was still a basement troll but I made a lot of money
Windmills of Your Mind perhaps? It was written for the original "Thomas Crown Affair" then a cover by Sting was done for the remake of the same movie a couple of years ago.
Re:Dusty Springfield
Whammo on 2002-01-26T16:22:28
Nope, afraid not.
This would be more of an acoustical guitar piece. I'm kicking myself for not picking out the tune on the piano the other night, because now I can't even remember how the tune goes....
:-( What a time for AdCritic to go offline.
Windmills of Your Mind perhaps? It was written for the original "Thomas Crown Affair" then a cover by Sting was done for the remake of the same movie a couple of years ago.
Re:Dusty Springfield
Whammo on 2002-01-27T15:38:35
On a search for something completely different, it looks like it was also covered by the Muppets.
